Smokin'!

Hubby says he can't read my blogs as well with the colors I use. So here's a bit of a change.

Been a few weird days here in Florida. Tuesday the sun was totally blocked out over my school with an eerie brown-orange haze. Today it was so smokey again that you couldn't see the stadium of the high school behind us, nor the office buildings behind that.

 Florida is under seige by fire.

Tonight I went out to dinner with friends. It was dark when we left the restaurant to return home. In Florida during the hot summers, when it rains at night & the cooler water hits the hot asphalt, a steam rises & makes the night look like pancakes seared on a too-hot griddle. It was like that tonight...only without the pancakes & griddle. My hubby just returned from Ft.Myers. He said Alligator Alley was blocked off for a while. When you look at a map on the weather report, they use little flashing tags of flame to show where all the fires are in Florida. One map I saw looked so bad that I couldn't find any areas that weren't covered by a flame. It was like a maze. I'm just glad Hubby could find a way to GET home!

The smoke from all the fires has been so bad that our county told all schools to keep their kids indoors. No outside play on the playground or P.E. My kids with asthma were being affected. I ended up waking with a sore throat from the smoke the day before. Headaches abound among people you talk to. It's murder on contact lenses. Everyone walks around school (only as necessary) with their hands or shirts over their noses. Teachers in portables had a/c drawing the smoke IN to them.

We sure need some relief soon. I'm sure our fire fighters do, too!

So today was a bit of a hectic day at school, besides what the fires threw into it. Mother's Day is Sunday. My hubby sent me a beautiful arrangement of flowers at school for Mother's Day. He also sent one to each of our moms. (He's always  so thoughtful! See Dr. Love blog I wrote earlier!) But the hecticness was due to getting my Second graders ready for Mother's Day. We made the cutest coffee filter & fluffy pipe cleaner butterflies. (Made me think of you, Bea.) They also wrote a poem to put into their M.D. cards. On the front we used paint to create tulips. You have the child place their whole hand into paint that is squeezed out onto a foam plate. They keep their hand flat with the fingers & thumb closed against one another. Then they place their hand down onto the front of the card & on top of the stem they've already created. Next, they take their thumbs & dip them into green paint. Then they press them down onto the sides of the stem to create leaves. Once the flower is dry, you take the coffee filter butterflies, hot glue them to a clothespin, and then clip it onto the card just above the flower. It looks like the butterfly is flying over.

My kids were so tickled with their results! They couldn't wait to get them home. Kids are so spontaneous like that. They wonder why should they keep the cards until Sunday. Why not open them NOW??? And ya know...WHY NOT? We always hear of how much holidays have become commercialized. You hear it lamented all the time. And when is a mother's love limited to just one day a year, and a Sunday at that!? 

So I think they have the right idea...

Why waste time waiting to give??

Treat EVERY day like it is a special day... somewhere... for someone.

And while the rest of you are waiting...

An early Happy Mother's Day to you, and...

Please pass the oxygen mask!

 

Tags: Florida fires, asthma, Mother's Day, Dr. Love